​Welcome to historic Shaker Square

​Shaker Square will soon celebrate its 90th birthday. From its original conception by the Van Sweringen brothers to today, Shaker Square has served the community around the Square as a place where intersections occur – commercial intersections, transportation intersections, social intersections, and cultural intersections.

City Ballet of Cleveland (CBC) is a nonprofit, pre-professional company residing at Cleveland CityDance on Shaker Square. The Company has been performing since the mid-90s and is committed to building a professional resident classical ballet company in the future and to retain local talent in Cleveland. In 2013 the Company received its first grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture. This vibrant and versatile company of dancers excels through dedication, self-discipline and love for the art of dance. Focused and energetic, these dancers are given unique opportunities to work with guest instructors, choreographers, and professional dancers. Company dancers serve as dance arts ambassadors wherever they perform.

Shaker Square’s Unique Story

Throughout Shaker Square’s long history, the Square has served as the anchor, the town center for urbane and diverse neighborhoods that surround the Square. Not only is Shaker Square listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but the Shaker Square Historic District became a Shaker Heights Landmark in 1980.

It is often said that Shaker Square is owned by the communities around the Square and that the legal owner of the Square’s responsibility is to steward the Square on behalf of those communities. Shaker Square’s unique sense of stewardship has been honored and respected by those parties who have had the one of a kind experience of owning Shaker Square – from the Van Sweringen brothers to The Coral Company.

A transportation link between downtown Cleveland and Shaker Square was established when new track was laid and a rail line opened in 1920. In 1923, when developer Josiah Kirby failed in his attempt to develop a Tudor-style shopping center along with Moreland Courts, Otis and Mantis Van Sweringen reacquired the land that was to become Shaker Square and, between 1927 and 1929, constructed the majority of the buildings in the Square today. From 1929 through 1943, The Van Sweringens maintained a sales office at the Square for the sale of residential lots in what was the Village of Shaker Heights.

Over the decades, the Square has been owned by individuals and companies dedicated to the Square’s vital community role and that dedication has sustained the Square in its place as the town center for the greater Shaker Square neighborhood. The Coral Company, which has proudly owned Shaker Square since 2004, maintains its corporate office at the Square.

Across the decades, Shaker Square has been home to an impressive variety of shops, restaurants, professional firms, arts organizations, and other businesses. The Square’s unique location and design created a commercial intersection which has evolved over the years, but remains a compelling place to do business, shop, dine, and relax.

Businesses at the Square opened in 1929 and when the Colony Theatre opened in 1937 the Square added entertainment to its commercial personality. Among the colorful businesses that have called Shaker Square home over the years are Helen and Gertude’s Beauty Shop, which promised “Scientific Care of the Hair and Scalp”, Stouffer’s Restaurant, which established the Square’s reputation for fine dining, the John Wade Record Shop, a Shaker Square landmark from the 40’s through the 70’s, and Richard Gildenmeister Books, which contributed mightily to the Square’s appeal as a treasured spot to find local merchants. In 2016, this tradition was celebrated when the Richard Gildenmeister Garden was dedicated and a permanent plaque placed on the median of North Moreland Boulevard next to the Shaker Mill Stone.

Today, the Square is home to a unique choice of dining options representing an international menu, one of a kind neighborhood shops, a movie theatre, and a variety of businesses. The merchants and businesses of the Square continue the tradition of providing for the day to day shopping needs of the Shaker Square neighborhood and offering delightful choices for dining and entertainment.

The Shaker Square neighborhood, which bridges the City of Shaker Heights and the eastern end of Cleveland, is distinguished by its shopping, housing options, architecture, dining establishments, architecture, civic pride, and urban quality of life. The Square is minutes away from the arts and culture hub of Cleveland in University Circle and the largest concentration of rental and condominium housing in Cleveland give Shaker Square a City feel, a walkable neighborhood reputation, and a lively quality of life.

Neighborhoods around the Square have always shown special pride in Shaker Square and that pride triggered the formation, in 1976, of Friends of Shaker Square. FOSS, as it became known, gave voice to the communities’ dedication to the Square, worked to promote and enhance the Square, and became a model for local community development work.

The Shaker Square Historic District, located in Shaker Heights and Cleveland and consisting of 106 buildings surrounding the Square, was built over the decades starting in the 1920’s all the way through the 1960’s. Shaker Square and the District around it remain an impressive place to live, work, raise a family, and enjoy City life.

Sitting in the midst of densely populated and diverse neighborhoods, Shaker Square’s singular quality through the years has been its cultivation of interactions. From fine dining at Stouffer’s in the 1930’s to today’s celebrated Shaker Square Farmers Market, the Square serves its merchants, neighbors, and visitors as the focal point for interactions of all sorts – social, commercial, business, transportation, family, and cultural.

Walkable, accessible by the RTA’s Blue and Green light rail lines, and easy to drive to at the meeting of Shaker and Moreland Boulevard’s, with restaurants of all varieties, a coffee shop, Cleveland’s only east side movie theatre, and lovely public spaces, the Square is a delightful meeting place. From the remarkable energy generated by the thousands of Farmers Market shoppers who visit Shaker Square every Saturday morning to a family enjoying coffee, popcorn, and ice cream at Dewey’s, the Square has always been the place where you’re likely to see a neighbor or make a new friend.

In the 1920’s, The Van Sweringen brothers asked Phillip Small and Charles Bacon Rowley to design Shaker Square to serve as the commercial and social hub for the neighborhoods of Shaker Heights and Cleveland that were sprouting all around the Square. Inspired by the eight-sided plaza at the center of Amalienborg Palace in Copenhagen, Denmark, Small and Rowley set about to design the second planned shopping center in the United States, after Country Club Plaza in Kansas City.

Shaker Square’s planning may have been influenced by the City beautiful movement, popular in the first half of the 20th century and emphasizing an architecturally unified set of buildings enclosing a formal open public space and intersected by broad tree-lined streets.

The Georgian Revival design of Shaker Square is expressed in four quadrants, each containing a central pavilion flanked by lower wings, square towers at the ends of each quadrant, a central village green, and landscaped lawns in front of each quadrant. The original radial design was adapted to an octagonal design to accommodate car parking in front of the shops. The Colony Theatre was completed in 1937, marking the completion of the original design for the Square.

The Square has been adapted over the years to serve the changing needs of merchants, businesses, and visitors. Recent adaptations include construction of a 30,000 square foot grocery store in the southwest quadrant, expansion of Shaker Square Cinemas to multiple screens, addition of intimate, outdoor dining patios throughout the Square, and creation of a corridor linking the northeast parking lot with the Square.

Shaker Square bears two personalities – a daytime personality and a nighttime personality. During the day, the Square serves the day to day shopping needs of the Shaker Square neighborhood and provides a business home to professional firms, arts organizations, and entrepreneurs. When the sun sets, the Square transforms into a dining and entertainment destination, offering an international menu of dining choices, coffee, popcorn, and ice cream at one of Cleveland’s most popular, locally owned coffee shops, and first run movies at Shaker Square Cinemas.

Shaker Square’s night and day personalities are also expressed in the variety of special events that come to the Square throughout the year. The Shaker Square Farmers Market every Saturday [outdoor in the summer and indoor in the winter], the Shaker Square Jazz Concert Series on Saturday evenings throughout the summer, the Greater Cleveland Urban Film Festival, and the Garlic Festival every September share the Square with events, classes, and pick up touch football games that sprout up at the Square throughout the year.